5 times Clarke doesn't think he loves her, and 1 time she knows
by myhomeistheshire
Summary: A 5 times fic.


i.

Clarke is sitting around the campfire, sitting with the group but not really listening. She had a long day fixing up the almost unending trail of injured, and she's just looking forward to lie down for the night. She's not listening, but she still hears someone's too-loud, too-drunk voice. "And did you see Raven after she came out of Bellamy's tent? Talk about sex hair!"

She doesn't know why that part of the conversation stuck out to her. She doesn't know why something twists in her chest, like a blade buried deep in her skin, or why she grabs the flask of moonshine out of Harper's hands and downs it. There are loud hoots from around the circle. And _shit,_ it's strong. She's tipsy already, but she takes another gulp. And another. Until the world around her is spinning.

And everything is too loud, too bright, and there are too many people pressing in. She stumbles to her feet. _I need to get out of here._ She thinks, over and over again. Until the bonfire is only a flicker in the distance, and she's leaning against a tree in the dark, gasping for air.

She can't help but feel a little like she's drowning.

ii.

Clarke is woken up to the sound of shouting.

It isn't uncommon, with a bunch of excitable teenagers, but this time it sounds different. So she slips into her clothes and steps out of the tent. She can't see anything at first, not until she pushes her way through the crowd and sees him.

Bellamy is lying on the ground, Monty dragging him from outside the gates.

"Stop! Stop moving him!" Clarke doesn't recognize her own voice. She doesn't think she's sounded this young, or this scared, since their first day on the ground. She kneels down to Bellamy's side. His face is matted with cuts and bruises, and the skin on his arms is all but torn apart. Her hands are skirting all over him, not sure where to start. She pushes her hair back, biting back whatever sound is wanting to leap out of her mouth. _Okay. Okay, think. He's just another patient._

She starts barking out orders. Boil rags, bring her the antiseptics, the gauze, the needle and thread. It's all a little unreal. But she ignores the pounding in her skull, just keeps working like her life depends on it.

(No, her life doesn't depend on it. But Bellamy's does.)

iii.

They're out on a scavenging expedition. Ever since they broke away from the adults to find a more inhabitable place to settle, they've been working nearly nonstop and Clarke is verging on a breakdown.

She wanted to go out by herself, to get away from everyone for just a little bit, but Bellamy insisted on coming with her. He'd worn his gruff-but-concerned face, and Clarke had had to ignore the sensation of having a knife twisted in her gut, when she reminded herself that he was just being the overprotective leader he always was. She's gotten used to that feeling.

"You know," She mentions, when they're trudging through the underbrush, "we haven't seen any grounders since we left. It's been _weeks,_ Bellamy. You really don't need to keep sending a guard with me wherever we go."

"We still don't know what other dangers could be out here, Clarke." Bellamy sighs, with the voice of someone who's had this argument a million times before.

"Yes, but you never send a guard with the others." Clarke persists.

"Obviously, but none of them are -"

"Your only medic. Right." Clarke tries to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but from the way Bellamy looks at her she didn't succeed. She sighs, and continues to make her way through the trees.

"Is that really what you think?"

Clarke turns to look at Bellamy. "What else would it be? Don't tell me it's because of my dazzling personality." She says with a roll of her eyes, but to her confusion Bellamy just lets out a sigh of exhasperation and runs his hands through his hair.

"Never mind."

She can't help but spend the rest of the trek wondering what he meant.

iv.

She's exhausted. Four of them had gone out to explore the area, and then some sort of weird gas hit them and it disappeared pretty fast but Clarke has _fucking asthma_ which means that she's now crumpled on all fours, gasping for breath because god forbid the ground have something that could act as an inhaler.

"Clarke? _Clarke!_ What the hell is wrong with her?"

"I don't know! There was some sort of smoke, and then she just fell to the ground, and she won't stop breathing like that -"

And then Clarke feels the familiar presence beside her, and the sensation of rough hands rubbing circles on her back.

"Hey. Just breathe, okay, Clarke? It's gonna be okay." Bellamy says in a soothing voice. "The smoke's gone now. Cough if you can, but if not - I'm here, alright? I won't let anything happen to you."

It might be hours, it might be minutes, but eventually the heaving turns into coughing, and she collapses onto the ground and focuses on drawing deep breaths in and out of her lungs. When she finally realizes that the world isn't spinning, she pushes herself up to a sitting position. Bellamy's hand brushes up against her arm, supporting it just enough that she doesn't topple over again.

When she looks up at him, he's looking at her like she's the sunlight after a hundred years of darkness. She doesn't let herself think why.

v.

They finally are nearing the ocean, and so somehow Clarke gets caught up in a celebratory game of drunken spin-the-bottle. She doesn't expect it to land on her, which is the only reason she agreed to play.

It doesn't, for the first bit. Raven's spin lands on Harper, eliciting raucous cheers from the group, and Harper's spin in turn lands on Jasper, who then lands on Mel, then Abe, then Miller...and on and on. Clarke doesn't even realize Bellamy's joined them until they've been going for a good ten minutes.

Clarke is too caught up wondering if he's actually going to play to realize that she's landed in the crosshairs until Raven nudges her. And her heart stops because it's _Finn,_ of all people. She almost considers leaving, just booking it the hell out of dodge, but everyone's glancing between them apprehensively, so she waits while Finn walks over to where she's sitting and kneels next to her.

He brushes the hair back from her face, and Clarke braces herself. When he kisses her it's sweet, gentle, and she's fine with it because he's keeping his distance. Until she goes to move away, and suddenly his hands are tangled in her hair and his lips are moving against hers viciously.

When she finally pushes away from him her face is red, but not from the reason the kids hooting at them think. She's pissed off - that he would act like they still had something, that he would keep her there far past the point where she wanted to pull away.

Her hands are shaking a little, but she focuses her energy into spinning the bottle voraciously. It spins, and spins, and spins...until, finally, it stops.

Facing dead towards Bellamy.

Her entire brain just shorts out. She doesn't know what to do, or say, or think. A muscle twitches in Bellamy's jaw, and his dark eyes are reflecting the firelight too brightly. She starts to move up, not sure what to do but go with it, when Bellamy speaks up.

"We've had enough fun for the night." He says in a harsh voice. "Everyone head to bed, except the people who are on guard. We've got a long day tomorrow."

He storms off, leaving Clarke more furious than she ever could be at Finn, without even knowing why.

+ i

Clarke is lost.

She's lost, and it's getting dark, and she's pretty sure she has a broken ankle. But staying out in the dark is just _not an option_, so she keeps wandering around the forest trying to backtrack her steps.

God, Bellamy is going to be pissed when she gets back. She'd deliberately slipped out while he was busy, both to collect herbs and to be alone for a while, and he is going to lord this over her for the rest of her life.

Assuming she survives, that is.

She ignores the paranoid part of her brain that's on a loop of _what happens if you don't find the camp?_ Because that's really not going to help her in any way, shape or form, and she has little enough energy without wasting a good portion of it on worrying.

She hobbles around for over an hour, before she finally sees the lights of torches. _Oh, thank god,_ she thinks as she stumbles her way towards the camp.

She's met with shouts of relief, and is all but swarmed by people. She's offering up a small smile when she hears a loud voice telling people to "Get the hell back to your posts, this isn't a goddamn birthday party!" _Great._ She thinks to herself as the crowd disperses, leaving her with a very, very pissed off Bellamy.

"Hey, Bellamy." She mumbles, not meeting his gaze.

"'Hey, Bellamy?' That's _really_ what you're gonna go with?" She finally glances up at him, and is surprised to see that he's practically spitting with rage.

"Bellamy, what -"

"You were gone for _twelve hours,_ Clarke." Bellamy cuts her off furiously. "I sent out three different scouting groups, which would have left us almost _completely_ defenseless if we were attacked, and you didn't even have the decency to tell me you were going!"

"I was going to look for _herbs,_ Bellamy." Clarke hears her own voice, getting colder to match the heat in Bellamy's. "And I don't need your goddamn _permission_ to go for a walk. I got lost, I found my way back. End of story."

_"__Not_ end of story. You could've been killed, Clarke! I thought you were -" Bellamy breaks off and runs a hand through his hair, letting out an exhasperated breath.

"I'm not." Clarke takes a step closer to him, focusing on the way the planes of his face dance in the leftover firelight. "Bellamy. I'm _not."_

He looks up at her, and she suddenly realizes how close they are. How her heart is thumping loudly in her chest, her breath coming in short gasps.

Finally, after an eternity of standing behind panes of glass, the walls shatter into pieces.

He pulls her to him, winding his fingers in her hair as his mouth comes down to cover hers.

She kisses him back, biting his bottom lip gently, and hears a soft moan from the back of his throat. He retaliates, crushing his arms around her as his tongue finds its way into her mouth, and Clarke can't help but echo the sound.

He smells like earth and the thunderstorm they'd had in July, and Clarke wants this moment to go on forever.

When they finally break apart, it's to the realization that everything in their world has turned upside down, and Clarke is almost afraid to look up at Bellamy, afraid that she'll see regret and disgust and that she'll go back to watching from afar and thinking about him only before she goes to sleep.

But when she does, he's staring at her like she's the only thing in the world, like she's a life raft and he's been drowning for years.

"I didn't -" She breaks off. "I didn't think that you felt that way about me. I thought, you and Raven -"

"That was one night, Clarke." And the way he says her name lets something loose within her. "She was getting over Finn, I was - trying to stop myself from thinking about you."

"That long?" She can't keep the surprise out of her voice. "I thought you hated me. And then, I mean, we got along, but then spin the bottle happened -"

"I didn't want it to happen like that." Bellamy says, and his hands are flirting along the waistband of her jeans, and Clarke doesn't think she ever wants him to stop. "I didn't want to know what it was like to kiss you, when I didn't think you would ever feel the same way."

"My god," Clarke whispers, looping her arms around the back of his neck, "you idiot." And then she's tiptoeing up to press her lips to his, and they're the only thing that exists in this space, on this earth, in this galaxy.

She's not sure what will happen with everyone, when they find the ocean. At this particular moment all she can think about is what it'll be like, to stand in the saltwater with her fingers linked in his.


End file.
